This is from when I first started blogging. A lot has changed since I posted here. For a current story, please visit 5andaviking.blogspot.com. Thank you! P.S. Please don't choke on the cyber dust that has settled in these old archives. Also- try not to laugh at me too much. ;)

Thursday, July 31, 2008

New Zealand Parenting... what?

Its been so long, I'll probably end up posting a million things this week. (I don't like posting a bunch of subjects all at once, I'll usually write about a specific thing, then post a second one, once the subject changes.)

A while back I had a post on American Parenting, boy, do I have something for you!

New Zealand Parenting!

Here's an article I found on the yahoo home page last week;

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A family court judge in New Zealand has had enough with parents giving their children bizarre names here, and did something about it.

Just ask Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. He had her renamed.Judge Rob Murfitt made the 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name could be changed, he said in a ruling made public Thursday. The girl was involved in a custody battle, he said.The new name was not made public to protect the girl's privacy."The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name," he wrote. "It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily."The girl had been so embarrassed at the name that she had never told her closest friends what it was. She told people to call her "K" instead, the girl's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court.

In his ruling, Murfitt cited a list of the unfortunate names.Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter "and tragically, Violence," he said.New Zealand law does not allow names that would cause offense to a reasonable person, among other conditions, said Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages.Clarke said officials usually talked to parents who proposed unusual names to convince them about the potential for embarrassment.Yeah, need I say more?

3 comments:

If I was your husband (which I am) and we had 98 children, I would definitely want to name that one Number 16 Bus shelter. Of course, we'll have to use up Number 1-15 bus shelters first. Want to hook up sometime?